I wanted to write a post describing how I'm feeling at the moment but I felt that to do that properly I need to set some context...
I became a Christian c.Nov/Dec 1997. I am not completely sure in what month it happened but those are the months I look back to when working out how long I have been a Christian. So, I have now been a Christian for c.8 years.
First the first two years of my Christian life I grew very slowly. I was going to a church which can best be described as dead and long dead at that. At the time, I didn't realise that I really should have left there and sought out somewhere preaching the truth. I was saved at a Christian youth group in Hirwaun (near Aberdare) and it was here that I learned more and more about the Lord and what being a Christian was about. I started to use daily reading notes called
Dayzd so that I could start reading the Bible. I had a very happy two years in Sixth Form with very limited knowledge of truth but I was certain of my own salvation (praise the Lord!) Also in the summers of 1998 and 1999 the youth group went to
Soul Survivor in the Bath & West Showgrounds in Shepton Mallet. I found these events to be a massive encouragement and help in living as a Christian. However, I still wasn't very clear on the gospel even though I am certain that I was saved back then!
In September 1999 I went to Swansea University and just followed a large group of Christian first and second year students to a local church. The church did not have a pastor at the time and so it had visiting speakers every week. As a young and hungry Christian I gobbled up everything I was being taught and started to grow. I threw myself into the Christian Union at the university as well, getting involved in meetings, prayer meetings, Bible studies, houseparties, everything available in fact! Things were good! But, looking back, I still hadn't grasped the gospel properly. By the end of that first year at university I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable and frustrated with the preaching and lack of vision at the church I was attending. I decided to look for something different when I returned in September.
In my second year at university I started going to
Townhill Baptist Church. In the first couple of weeks of my return I met three people who would become very significant in my Christian knowledge and experience, i.e. my pastor and my
UCCF workers. I was a hall group Bible study leader at the Christian Union and because of this I attended weekly meetings with the UCCF staff. In these meetings the UCCF guys lead us through the passage we were going to then study with our groups. In the spring term we studied
Amos. In the first study on Amos, I can't really remember what was said, but I can remember the eyes of my understanding opening wider and wider through the meeting and the joy just spilling out in the prayer time at the end. A penny had dropped, a light had been turned on, I was beginning to grasp the gospel! I cried out to God to thank Him for saving me with more understanding about what that meant than ever before! One particular sermon from church particularly stands out as having helped me earlier in that year too. The pastor was preaching on righteousness being like a passport for Heaven. If you haven't got it, you can't get in. Just like if you tried to go abroad without a passport you can't get into Heaven without the righteousness of Christ. This righteousness is only available in Christ! So I began to grow big time in understanding and joy. 2001 was probably the best year in my life so far. I read the whole Bible that year, making good use of the free time you get as a student! I also got baptised in June that year - something I had grappled with for a long time having already been 'christened' as a child.
This continued for quite a long time (thanks be to God!) The church was also seeming to grow in grace and expectation of God more and more. In my first year after graduation I can remember prayer meetings in church where it really was as if God was there dealing with us as we prayed. It was verging on being awesome. However, after a time, there were all sorts of things happening under the surface and behind the scenes and people started to leave. One of my best friends at the time decided she wasn't a Christian. Things seemed to be falling apart. There was a lot of mistrust during that time and people were hurt. Since then, and for a long time, I have struggled and struggled and struggled spiritually. Friendships and relationships that were hurt back then have been restored and healed but the spiritual highs are long gone.
There has been a different sort of excitement at church since those difficult times. People living in the area around and about the church have started coming in to various events and services. One or two have professed faith. Two have been baptised. It has been amazing to see God working in this way. This has continued and we are seeing more people coming in their ones and twos. It is very exciting. These people need to be saved. It is almost as if after the horrible times we went through as a church God is now bringing great blessing and we are praying that He would save these people that are comign in.
I write this because I look back to those days when we seemed to be getting somewhere in prayer and in fellowship. The days when I was reading 3 chapters of the Bible every day (almost) without fail and spending much time in prayer and fellowship with God. I'm not saying I was satisfied with myself back then, I certainly wasn't, but I was somewhere that I am not now. We seemed to have a real desire for God and personal revival. It feels like these things have gone. But they haven't gone in everyone. They have gone in my heart and in the hearts of others I have been close to.
This is my current dilemna. I know that to go on I need to take those steps in faith day by day to spend time with the Lord and trust that denying myself and following Him moment by moment is worth it. If I'm honest I am mostly looking these days to how I can enjoy myself here and now. It is painful to consider this and I really do not want to go on like this. I am despairing and fed up with myself and my attitude and laziness. I need the Lord to help me to choose Him day by day and this is my prayer. Please, if you have time to spare, make it your prayer for me too.
Psalm 42
1 As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me continually, "Where is your God?" 4 These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival.
5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation 6 and my God.
My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. 7 Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me. 8 By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. 9 I say to God, my rock: "Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?" 10 As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me,while they say to me continually, "Where is your God?"
11 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.
